Shannen Findlay
Caring

Denise Drysdale reveals the scariest health battle she has ever faced

Denise Drysdale has been dealing with terrifying health battles since last October and is just now opening up about the difficult journey.

The upbeat and outspoken breakfast show presenter can hardly believe she’d be sitting down to talk about her health, she tells Sarah Harris on Studio 10.

Last October, Drysdale came face to face with health problems after deciding to take a well deserved break from presenting life while on “the cruise of a lifetime”.

Just one week while on the ship, she suffered from a knee injury that was debilitating.

She explains the injury came while getting out of bed and unfortunately for the rest of her cruise experience, she was forced to sit in a wheelchair. However, this typically painful injury did not stop there for her – the pain became so intense she was forced to cut her losses and come back to Australia to undergo a knee replacement surgery.

Unfortunately, Drysdale revealed blood clots soon formed in her knee as the surgery did not go to plan. On top of that, the presenter was hit with more health problems.

She developed headaches and her vision began to get worse.

"I woke up in the middle of the night and rang the ambulance which was a big thing for me to do," she said.

“The doctor told me that if I had waited another day, I might’ve gone blind.”

Drysdale was diagnosed with a detached retina – a condition where the retina detaches itself from the eyeball.

Just when she thought it might be over, a few months into house arrest to get her health on track – she was hit with another scare.

“I woke up and found a huge lump in my breast," she explained. The lump became apparent on the morning of New Year's Eve.

“I thought maybe it is cancer, maybe it's not.” 

Fortunately, the lump turned out to be a cyst – a diagnosis Drysdale was thankful for in the end.

Drysdale says the health battles she faced in such a short span of time forced her to consider the situation carefully.

“I know there are people out there going through the same thing and you just have to hang in there and get to the other end,” she said.

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Denise Drysdale, caring, studio 10, sarah harris, well-being, health, channel10